Trapped in a world he is not designed to cope with, Dave-El (the true Kryptonian name of alleged Earth creature David Long) writes about comics, Doctor Who, politics and whatever damned thing pops into his unbalanced mind.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

The Adventures of Supergirl

Look!
Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…

SUPERGIRL!!!

Also:
Superman.

After
playing coy with the existence of Kara Zor-El’s cousin over in Metropolis last
season (lots of references to “my cousin” and “him”), we get to see the main
man up front and personal in the season 2 premier of Supergirl.

Tyler
Hoechlin is Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter for the Metropolis Daily Planet
and his costumed alter ego, Superman. Tyler’s Clark is a bit of dork but not in
cartoonish way while his Superman is relaxed and gracious with just enough
gravitas take him seriously. After just
one episode, I think that Tyler Hoechlin
may be my favorite Superman ever.

Which is a shame because I don’t think we’re getting a Superman TV series out
of this. And we can’t have Superman hanging around here too much because the
show is called Supergirl; Kara can’t get upstaged in her own show.

But
even in the presences of Hoechlin’s incredibly appealing take on Superman,
Melissa Benoist continues to charm us viewers with her takes on Supergirl and
her civilian persona, Kara Danvers. While Supergirl is positively ecstatic to
have her cousin in town to share in the super powered derring do, Kara’s
personal life is in a quandary. She hasn’t quite made up her mind what to do
with Cat Grant’s generous offer from the end of last season to basically do
whatever the hell she wants. But Kara isn’t sure what she wants. She’s even not
sure about her relationship with James Olsen, even affter their season long
flirtatious game of will they/won’t they.

Thankfully
for Kara, her cuz is in town. Here, we have two people cast out of their home
world, both with powers and abilities beyond normal humans, Kara and Clark
understand each other in a way no one else can. Yet they have unique
experiences. Kara is still new to the super hero game while Clark, unlike Kara,
does not have a personal frame of reference for what life on Krypton was like. This
is a relationship that makes senses which counteracts one of the missteps from
season 1. For whatever creative or legal reasons necessary to keep Superman out
of the picture, it portrayed a Superman who was being a dick to his cousin by
keeping out of her life. It was a scenario that never really rang true for me
but the debut of season 2 goes a long way to rectify that.

The
move from CBS to the CW also meant a move from Los Angeles to Vancouver for
production of the series. CatCo looks the same but the producers decided to
take advantage of the move to get the DEO out of the caves into a sleek modern
HQ hidden in plain sight in downtown National City. It looks cool but I wonder
about the significant security risks.

Another
change with the move isn’t evident yet but seeds were sown in Episode 1 of the
Season 2 as we get hints that Cat Grant might be looking to make a big change
in her life. Sadly, Calista Flockhart is not up for the move to Canada so her
character will be moved to a recurring role. Which is a shame because Flockhart’s
take on Cat Grant has been nothing short of amazing, imbedding a potential
cartoonish characterization with a level of depth and nuance that made her a
break out in Season 1 on par with Supergirl herself.

By
the way, Winn is no longer at Catco but is now putting that computer wizardry
to work for the DEO which makes sense to me. And we meet Lex Luthor’s sister
who just wants to reclaim her family name away from Lex’s evil legacy. But can
we really trust her? And Cadmus is going to cause trouble this season.

Bythe time this posts, episode 2 of the new
season will have aired but I’m not sure I will have a chance to amend this to
include info from that episode. Some of the questions posed in episode 1 (like
what is Cat up to) may well be answered by now.

But
I think Supergirl is off to a strong start at her new network home and I’m
really looking forward to what happens next.

___________________________________________________

As
Supergirl enjoys a new start, tomorrow’s blog post takes a look at an ending. I’ve
seen the last two episodes of Stranger Things’ first season and… and…

Oh
my God, the feels! The FEELS!!!

Anyway,
I’ll be posting on that tomorrow.

Later
tonight is the 3rd Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and
Donald Trump. Assuming the world is not reduced to a smoking cinder floating in
space, I will share my thoughts on that in Friday’s post.

Until
next time, this is Dave-El reminding you to remember to be good to one another, just like my cousins Kal-El and Kara Zor-El would do.*

*They'll tell you I'm not really their cousin. Oh, you guys, what a couple of kidders you are!